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Studying and reflecting on history in Jerusalem…

Contemplating and enjoying nature at Walden pond.

There are those for whom the contents of books and the results of their studies are as a kind of outer dress they wear. Even if the outer dress may be on their own psyches.

To what degree should a gebildeter Mensch be involved and engaged with the ungebildet Viele?

Recognizing how use-less is most of what I have learned from five decades of study, travel, observations and living, how could I not but be irrelevant to that which predominantly passes for life, work and world?

It is really impossible to evaluate that which is new, without a sufficient knowledge of the olds.

I am confident that few I know will find these notes of use – if of perplexing interest.

How to argue about, or even converse amicably, Truth(s) and facts amid the multitude so pervasively ignorant and opinionated of “History”?

A true seeker-scholar can search for decades to find a single sentence

As I did moments ago.

No fireworks…

Alone.

But presumably a change in “aura”, if only in tint.

“As Robert Richardson writes, ‘In the end, Walden is not about submission to nature. …Nature teaches us to want to reach beyond nature.’ Independence is not found by dissolving into the natural landscape but rather by respecting, enjoying, learning from, and finally rising above nature.” America’s Bachelor Uncle Thoreau, and the American Polity, Bob Pepperman Taylor, p. 95.

There are so many (even scholarly) views of Henry David Thoreau, his life and work, that one can pretty much view him as one will.